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THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 


THE  COLLECTION  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINl.\NA 

ENDOWED  BY 

JOHN  SPRUNT  HILL 

CLASS  OF  1889 


Cp970.03 
H87e 


MINOR   TOPICS 
AN  EXTRAORDINARY  INDIAN  TOWN 

Editor  of  the  Magazine  of  American  History  : 

The  student  of  American  colonial  history  finds  many  a  difficulty  which  he  can- 
not resolve.  At  one  time  there  are  conflicting  statements  of  authors,  and  the  nov- 
ice is  unable  to  decide  which  is  right.  Anachronisn:is  crop  out  of  which  no  ac- 
count is  taken,  and  how  shall  he  determine  the  truth  when  modern  collators  agree 
in  the  incidents.?  The  time  is  changed,  or  the  agents  do  not  cooperate,  and  there  is 
a  reasonable  doubt  if  the  original  record  is  not  apocryphal  and  the  writer  "  a  fraud." 
Such  thoughts  arise  on  reading  a  "Journey  to  the  Cherokee  Mountains," 
recorded  in  The  Natural  History  of  North  Carolina,  by  John  Brickell,  3iI.D., 
Dublin,  1737.  He  says:  "The  latter  end  of  February,  Anno  Domini  1730,  we 
set  out  on  our  intended  journey,  being  in  number  ten  white  men  and  two  Indians, 
for  our  huntsmen  and  interpreters.^  They  took  the  usual  outfit  of  horses,  imple- 
ments, and  provisions.  ''''They  viet  ivith  no  human  specie  all  the  tcay,"  or  incident 
worthy  of  record,  except  "  sleeping  on  beds  of  moss  under  the  shade  of  a  tree, 
near  the  fire,"  till  fifteen  days  out,  at  six  o'clock,  they  discovered  a  large  party  of 
Iroquois  Indians,  in  a  town  with  a  State-House,  war-captains,  and  councilors. 
"The  King  asked  him  hovv^  his  brother  (the  governor)  did  ?  "  They  lodged  two 
days  in  one  of  the  King's  houses,  near  the  centre  of  the  town,  and  on  benches 
covered  with  skins.  The  rest  of  the  buildings  were  in  a  confused  order — no  reg- 
ular streets  nor  shops,  or  even  handycraft  trade  among  them.  There  was  a  great 
number  of  men  and  women  "and  boys  and  girls  stark-naked."  Brickell  "asked 
of  the  King  to  see  his  Quiogozon  or  Charnel  House.  It  was  the  largest  one  we 
ever  beheld. "  They  traveled  four  days  further  west,  over  two  ridges  of  mountains, 
and  saw  one  Indian,  who  fled,  afid,  "in  thirty-two  days  arrived  among  Christians." 
TJiere  is  no  place  of  departure  or  destination  given  ;  no  notice  of  the  origin  or  pur- 
pose of  the  expedition  ;  no  responsibility  ar  report  to  any  public  authority  or 
appointing  power — solely  a  private  enterprise,  with  no  valuable  results. 

How  vastly  superior  in  all  particulars  were  the  bold  marches  of  Lederer  into 
the  same  regions.  Yet  this  expedition  stands  forth  as  an  important  event  in  the 
early  history  of  the  Province,  and  is  thus  noticed  by  Governor  Martin  in  his  His- 
tory of  North  Carolina,'''  vol.  ii.,  pp.  1-8.  "  Dr.  John  Brickell  was  sent  by  Gov- 
ernor Burrington  to  the  Western  Indians,  and  set  off  from  Edenton  the  latter  part 
of  February,  1731,  with  ten  white  men  and  two  Indians."  He  tells  the  story  of 
the  journey  as  recorded  by  Brickell,  and  their  return,  and  "in  thirty-two  days 
reached   the  settlements  of  white  people. "      This   record   is   accepted   and   fully 


340  MINOR   TOPICS 

indorsed  in  the  recently  published,  comprehensive,  and  exhaustive  ^''Narrative 
and  Critical  History  of  America,  vol.  V.,  chap,  v.,  p.  301,  by  Professor  Wm.  I. 
Rivers,"  as  conferring  especial  distinction  on  the  times.  He  says  :  "  One  service, 
however,  he  (Governor  Burrington)  rendered,  in  conciliating  the  Indians  on  the 
Western  border.  To  this  end  he  sent  Dr.  John  Brickell  with  a  party  of  ten  men, 
and  two  Indians  to  assist  them.  The  account  (Brickell's)  of  the  expedition  adds 
to  our  knowledge  of  the  condition  of  that  remote  section  of  the  province  as  the 
interesting  work  of  Lawson  (I.)  does  with  respect  to  other  sections." 

The  amount  of  "  conciliation  of  the  Indians,"  and  of  "  increased  knowledge 
of  the  country,"  appears  in  the  record,  and  is  very  meagre.  By  a  collation  of 
dates  ^ie  will  assume  that  Brickell  set  out  the  25th  of  February,  1730.  The  out- 
ward journey  occupied  twenty-one  days,  and  the  return  thirty-two  days — the  sum, 
fifty-three  days,  extending  to  April  18,  1730.  We  are  sure  in  regard  to  the  year, 
as  he  says,  p.  108  :  "There  were  two  Buffalo  calves  taken  in  the  year  1730  by 
some  of  the  planters  on  the  New  river  ;  whether  transported  to  Europe  or  not,  I 
know  not,  as  I  left  the  country  very  soon  after."  New  River  is  a  small  stream  in 
Onslow  County,  on  the  coast,  where  the  presence  of  an  historical  buffalo  is  not 
known.    It  is  well,  also,  to  note  the  dates  given  by  Governor  Martin,  vol.  11.,  p.  i. 

Burrington  was  appointed  governor  in  England,  April  29,  1730.  He  reached 
North  Carolina  in  the  middle  of  February,  1731;  qualified  as  governor  February 
25,  1 731,  which  was  the  earliest  date  he  could  issue  a  commission  ;  called  the  legis- 
lature to  meet  April  13,  1731,  and  needed  authority  from  it  to  do  such  an  act. 

It  seems,  then,  Brickell  had  accomplished  his  journey  eleven  days  (between  the 
1 8th  and  29th  of  April,  1730),  before  the  governor  was  appointed  in  England,  near 
ten  months  before  he  arrived  in  North  Carolina;  and,  more,  Brickell  left  the  coun- 
try the  year  before  the  governor  came. 

We  look  in  vain  for  proof  that  these  two  dignitaries  had  any  official  relations, 
were  in  North  Carolina  together,  or  that  they  ever  met  or  heard  of  each  other. 

The  records  of  Governor  Burrington's  administration  of  some  three  years  con- 
tain no  mention  of  Brickell  or  his  expedition,  or  they  would  have  been  quoted  by 
Martin  or  Rivers.  On  the  contrary,  the  evidence  of  the  only  competent  wit- 
ness, Brickell,  proves  an  alibi  for  himself,  and  an  absolute  negative  in  each  partic- 
ular. It  seems  difficult  to  account  for  the  confused  statements  of  Governor  Mar- 
tin, and,  more  so,  for  their  adoption  by  Professor  Rivers.  If  the  latter  has  ever 
carefully  read  and  compared  Lawson  and  Brickell,  we  cannot  account  for  his  lit- 
erary judgment  in  placing  them  so  nearly  on  a  level.  Other  American  writers  have 
done  the  same,  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Brickell  has  been  a  stumbling- 
block  to  historians  for  just  one  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

Now  that  Professor  Rivers,  most  conspicuously  of  all,  stands  forth  as  his  cham- 
pion, he  has  indirectly  become  responsible  for  the  existence  of  this  permanent  and 
populous  town  of  Iroquois,  some  five  hundred  miles  from  their  native  seat,  in  1730  ! 
The  "  Sinnegars,"  or  Senecas,  were  known  in  these  parts,  before  the  treaty  of  1751, 


MINOR   TOPICS  341 

only  when  on  the  warpath  against  the  Catawbas,  Saponas,  and  other  southern  tribes, 
or  stimulating  the  Tuscaroras,  as  in  1711,  to  indiscriminate  murder  of  the  whites. 

We  find  no  mention  by  any  one  of  the  numerous  writers  on  the  Six  Nations  of 
such  a  distant  migration  and  peaceful  residence  of  a  large  town  of  the  Iroquois,  at 
this  or  any  other  period  of  their  history.  Oliver  P.  Hubbard 

New  York,  September  q,  1887. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


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